Biography

Leoric Orthalis was born in a modest logging and fishing town called Jevin's Stand, so named for a Treman war hero Havon Jevin and his regiment of soldiers who held the strategically important region against a large invasion force during one of Treman's early conflicts. The town since has become of less strategic value due to Treman's territorial expansion putting it well away from any boarders of conflict, but it still provides a large supply of lumber to the kingdom as a whole and maintains a large standing militia to protect it from semi-regular attacks by packs of monstrous humanoid tribes that still inhabit the mountains the town is built at the foot of. Leoric was the youngest child born to Lady Kartalia Orthalis, retired military captain and former member of Treman's Gold Lances, a renown squadron of wyvern riding dragoons. She retired to her hometown of Jevin's Stand to marry her childhood sweetheart, Thalin Orthalis, who runs Jevin's Stands' most notable inn/tavern the Valor's Rest Inn. Leoric grew up with his three older sisters, Juli, May, and Raquel, all of whom followed in their mother's militant footsteps and had joined the town's militia forces. Leoric lived a fairly happy and peaceful life up until the age of thirteen, spending most of his time either apprenticing to his father to learn to run the inn or playing games with his elder sisters, whom he was quite close to, or delving into his mother's extensive collection of books where he learned of all manner of fanciful tale.

Attack on the town

His life changed drastically one late summer when the monstrous humanoids, mostly gnolls, formed into a horde larger than any previous and swept down from the mountains to besiege Jevin's Stand. Treman was as a whole so heavily engaged with a three way war with its neighbors that no reinforcements could be sparred for the mountain community's defense so it was up to Jevin's Stands' own militia to brave the assault and break the siege themselves. Leoric's own mother took up her spear again and assisted in leading the militia forces into battle alongside her daughters, and through over a month of hard blooding fighting the gnoll chieftan was finally killed and the enemy attack shattered, the horde dispersing once more into the forested mountains. However the victory was bought at the cost of nearly three fourths of the militia warriors lives, all three of Lenoard's sisters also counted amongst the fallen. This devastated the young Leoric in such a way that he for many weeks was unable to even bring himself to speak to anyone. His recovery only began when he, after having locked himself in his mother's library for days, discovered an interesting passage in one of her books detailing different forms of magic.

The passage spoke of the essence of divine magic, and how in a long passed age there was a small sect of lore keepers who possessed knowledge of the Language of the Gods, the runes of the divine word that through their writing or utterance could channel the very powers of the gods. Leoric knew some lore of divine magic, understood the power that true priests and emissaries of the gods could wield to heal, protect, or even…resurrect. Yet he was no child of faith and after the deaths of his sisters held little love for gods that did little more than grant powers to the few that gave them enough lip service. But if the text he was reading was to be believed these runes of power required no faith, no love of any god to function, only knowledge was needed to wield the runes and gain power over the divine, perhaps even to restore life itself to those that had lost it.

Obsession was born in the young Leoric that day and with no small effort did he convince his mother to start teaching him a few tricks of combat and survival; much to her bemusement as he was still but a boy, but she suspected that his intent was to honor his sister's memory by joining the militia himself. She could not have been more wrong. After a year of study under his mother's firm hand Leoric stole some gold from his family's funds and used it to purchase himself the needed equipment to leave home and begin his quest; the search for the divine runes, the Language of the Gods. He moved quickly to the next town, then to the next, at first mainly concerned with avoiding any pursuit from home. Then he took work with the next caravan he could find traveling to Midenhall. Once there he began his search in earnest, making use of what little gold he could make with small odd jobs to fund himself. He focused first on looking for any leads in local libraries or among sages willing to speak with him about old magics and especially anything involving runes. His search was slow and painful, as he had to make money using what little he'd learned of fighting from his mother or simply by doing basic manual labor, yet he persevered, and bit by bit garnered clues that would eventually point him toward an old ruin in southern Treman called the Pit of Truth, a place rumored to be the remnant fortress of an arcane creature that'd inhabited the land before Treman was founded. Leoric had made a few acquaintances in the city of adventuring mind and from then formed a small party that would travel to the ruins.

Adventures in Lorasia

The three traveled to the Pit of Truth and therein were forced into a obscene labyrinth ridden with traps and deadly aberrant creatures, but the three steadfastly cut through it all until they reached the ruin's inner sanctum where they came face to face with the twisted form of the ruin's ancient owner, a mad celestial trumpet archon who rather than battle the trio decided to play a game with them upon learning that Leoric sought knowledge of the Language of the Gods. Answering the crazed archon's barrage of riddles the party was rewarded with choice trinkets from the archon's collection and with a book containing the secrets of the runes Leoric sought. However Leoric was to learn that this was but the first arduous step in what was to be a long trail towards his eventual goal of bringing his sister's back to life. While the book held quite a bit of knowledge on divine runes and even how to use them deciphering the heavy tome was to be a long term task and one that would only start giving him the basic powers of using the least of the runes, nowhere near ones powerful enough to raise the dead as he so wished.

The trio remained together for a time after that, traveling across Lorasia in search of new adventures, profit, and in Leoric's case even more clues to ancient lore and texts regarding the runes. In this time he developed his mastery of the least rune's quickly, integrating his martial skills with those of his new found control of the divine to the point where many would mistake him for a cleric upon casual inspection, though his lack of bearing any rainments of faith would cause more than one incident with true servants of the gods. The trio's adventures continued for several years as they traveled and fought their way across the many wars of Lorasia, until they found themselves in the dark kingdom of Davan in pursuit of another ruin Leoric wished to explore than they'd learned from reliable sources contained a temple dedicated to the study of a Divine Word, which to Leoric sounded like a good possibility to be a rune of power.

Upon arriving in the region the trio made their way to this new ruin and found themselves quickly in competition with a host of other adventuring parties that had also been exploring the massive underground complex in search of riches and power. Alliances were both made and broken and the trio had to on more than one occasion deal with turncoat fellow adventurers or just simply fight their way through melees between larger adventuring groups. After no small amount of struggle they reached a chamber where Leoric felt something akin to a voice calling in his head, drawing him to an altar that resembled a large white hourglass. In a trance-like state Leoric manipulated runes upon the altar that revealed a secret passage beneath it that drew him further in, leaving his companions to follow in wonderment. At the bottom of a long spiraling passage Leoric found a perfectly circular room in the very center of which was etched a large rune, a rune more complex and brimming with more power than anything he'd found in the tome he'd acquired years ago. This, he realized, was not merely a lesser or even average rune, but one of the Prime Runes, one of the runes that represented a fundamental aspect of creation. What it was doing in this place he did not know, nor did he understand how the rune had drawn him right to it, but regardless he was compelled by what he could only imagine was the rune itself to stand upon its carved surface.

Upon doing so he was engulfed in twisting, shifting energies and bombarded with visions he did not understand. He saw the world form, witnessed empires rise and fall, races born and die, and all in the span of an instant thought he saw the very firmament of Time and its endless cycle. When he awoke from his dazed state he remembered next to nothing of the images he'd witnessed, but the carved rune was gone from the stone floor and instead he felt something new beating within his breast alongside his heartbeat, a second pulse that threaded through him like the blood in his veins. Carved on his chest now was a stark white tattoo of the very rune that had been on the floor; the Prime Rune of Time had chosen a new bearer, for a purpose Leoric could not even begin to guess at.

After leaving that ruin the trio found they had made some new powerful enemies, as one of the adventurers they'd been forced to slay had been the son of Davan's monarch and the man's comrades who had survived the fight had informed said monarch of Leoric and his companion's identities. They had little choice but to quickly flee the nation, yet while bound back for the mainland from Davan's island shores the trio's ship came under attack by privateers from the navy of wessen, a rival nation to Treman. The vessel sank and Leoric was separated from his companions in the process, forced to drift upon ocean tides clinging to a large piece of the ship's hull that remained afloat. Leoric was after three days, near the point of starvation, picked up by a long ranging merchant vessel from the southern continent of Nora. The halfling crew of the ship nursed Leoric back to health but by the time he was recovered enough to move on his own the ship had already reached Nora's shores for its seasonal trade route long the northern coast. With no immediate way to return to Lorasia and seek out his friends, if they'd lived, Leoric found himself a stranger in a strange land, but was oddly content with the matter. He'd still had a long way to go in discovering the right runes to resurrect his sisters and he now had a new power to discover the limits of; the ability to manipulate time.

Adventures in Nora

Despite this fabulous new power Leoric noticed it came with a distinct price. The Prime Rune of Time seemed to have an agenda of its own and as Leoric began to travel about the nations of Nora he found he would be compelled by the force that had conjoined with his soul to travel to specific places at specific times; and when he arrived at each location he would discover something amiss, some mishap or danger befalling some folk, and he would be compelled to help. It was as if the rune was using Leoric as a living walking fix-it man, pulling him along from one place to another to interfere with matters beyond Leoric's knowing. The rune never gave instructions, never spoke nor provided visions or clues, it merely kept compelling Leoric to travel from place to place, each time Leoric encountered some incident or matter that was afoot that was readily apparent that a man of his skills could assist with…and he could only guess as to why the rune wanted him to do so or what result the rune was searching for. Since this was more or less in tune with what Leoric wanted to do anyway he has yet to feel much need to resist the rune's compulsions, though he finds it irritating at times when the compulsion comes at an inopportune time or keeps him from following more leads into discovering more runes. He also suspects that he is not the only bearer of a Prime Rune, and that perhaps this may tie into a larger conflict that has yet to make itself apparent. Certainly Nora as a whole is facing a time of great conflict and Leoric imagines it won't be long before he starts to see the pattern in the events the Prime Rune of Time is forcing him to follow, so for now he follows that path and does his best to take what experiences he can from the affair, for the moment content that he can still pursue his goal and help others with his powers.

But who knows when all that will change, for Time is not a river, but an ocean, and its currents are both deep and often go unseen until one is caught in their grip.